David explaining the history behind Cross Bones graveyard. He stands facing three guests as they listen

Journey Through Verse: Poetry and Memories with London Bridge Tour Guide David 

This is a poem that I wrote in 2000, titled “If It’s Meant to Be, It Will Be”. I recited it at a Crossbones Graveyard vigil, and tend to mention it while being outside of the graveyard on my tour. If it’s meant to be it will be. I used to know a wise lady […]

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Ben walks away from the camera on a street in Clerkenwell on a sunny day

Exploring the Poetry of London’s Streets: A Journey with Ben from King’s Cross to Clerkenwell

There is a certain poetry to be found in walking city streets… I take visitors to London on a walking tour that starts at St. Pancras International train station, with Unseen Tours: we focus on the many layers of this complex city, the juxtaposition of old and new, and surely London’s greatest speciality, the comings-together of unlikely subjects […]

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From Cloud Gazing to Tour Guiding: Pete’s Evolution as a Public Speaker

Yes, I’m a public speaker, I speak in public, to the public on my tour. I’m used to speaking in public, although I don’t really know if I’m any good at it, because of previous experience. In adulthood this started when I was at the University of Sussex, and of course, public speaking to the […]

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Viv, our Covent Garden tour guide, smiles for the camera.

Transforming Prejudice Into Empathy: A Master’s Thesis on London’s Unseen Tours 

Hi, I am Irina a 24-year-old marketing student with a focus on tourism at the IMC University of Applied Sciences in Austria. The first time I heard about Unseen Tours was in our university course “Global Tourism Perspectives”, where our professor Dr. Claudia Dolezal talked about social entrepreneurship and her collaborations with Unseen Tours. My […]

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Five people listening to an Unseen Tours guide, Pete on Brick Lane. Pete points upwards to a building as he explains its history to his guests.

Pete: What life taught me whilst being homeless…

Having been a tour guide with Unseen Tours for 8 years, I get asked a lot of questions by my tourists. Through the years I’ve been asked a lot of questions, but a while ago I was asked a question that did fluster me, because it was from so unexpected that I’d never even considered such a question. The question I was asked […]

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How do we talk about homelessness during the Coronation?

How do we talk about homelessness when the world is tuning in to a major world event happening in our city? The simple answer is – we usually don’t! People who were rough sleeping in the capital were removed during the London Olympics for example (our former tour guide Henri often spoke about his experience […]

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Could you be Unseen Tours’ next tour guide for Hackney or Tower Hamlets?

Do you…. Then you could be our next tour guide! What makes our tours special is that they are all created by the people that run them – meaning that you will have the opportunity to guide people around YOUR London. Training will be provided, and no prior experience of tour guiding is required. All […]

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Tramp

The word Tramp has changed its meaning over time, from an itinerant worker tramping around on foot in search of employment, to the current meaning of a ne’er-do-well or a homeless person. But how did this change occur, and how can we challenge the misconception of the current usage of such a divisive epithet? To […]

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Unseen Tours receives funding from Mayor of London

Unseen Tours has received funding from the Mayor of London’s Untold Stories fund part of his Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm to set up new walking tours in the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Hackney. The funds will allow Unseen Tours to recruit more people with experience of homelessness in London to create their […]

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Shelter’s Cost of Living Hacks

Shelter’s most recent campaign, The cost of living crisis, builds on the current crisis the country is going through and highlights the housing emergency: almost 2.5 million renters are either behind or constantly struggling to pay their rent, and 1 in 3 spend at least half their household income on rent. Saving tips and hacks are NOT sufficient.

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